Blink and the Functional Freeze
Navigating exhaustion and inspiration, I reflect on insights from attending the Blink festival.
As I mentioned in the last newsletter, this month has been rocky to say the least. I’ve been navigating a lot of very big things which has turned my day to day upside down. Every time I attempt to reinstate some sort of routine or sit down to make any kind of plan, a wave of exhaustion hits and I feel like I need to take a nap. This can happen at any time of day, even an hour or two after I wake up. It requires me to pause what I’m doing to try to shake off the fatigue so I can keep going, which makes whatever I’m trying to accomplish take a lot longer.
What I assumed was burnout may actually be something called functional freeze. The “functional” part of it is the key. When experiencing functional freeze you’re still able to complete daily tasks, however everything is exhausting. You’re essentially on autopilot because you have to be.
Externally, I appear fine. I’m doing the dishes and grocery shopping, I’ve completed two very small client projects, I’ve met up with friends. However my screen time is through the roof as I spend a ridiculous amount of time bouncing between social media apps because everything else feels very overwhelming. I have infrequent bursts of energy that I try to lean into as much as I can so I can continue to accomplish daily tasks, however that likely just perpetuates the exhaustion because I’m pushing myself when I should be resting.
All that being said, I need to get back into the swing of things, especially with my work. Next week, I'll resume my regular newsletter schedule with an October summary for all subscribers and an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at what I’m working on for paid subscribers (you lovely folks) two weeks later.
Now for your exclusive look at the most exciting thing to happen this month: attending Blink!
Blink is the country’s largest projection mapping and light installation festival and takes place in Cincinnati and parts of Kentucky. I saw an Instagram ad for it back in 2022 and have been planning to go ever since. Because it spans over 30 city blocks and requires shutting down a significant portion of the city, it takes place over 4 nights from 7-11pm each night and only happens every two years.
In 2022, there were an estimated 2 million people in attendance. While final numbers haven’t come in yet, the executive director of Blink is speculating that this year’s event may have set an attendance record and businesses have already reported higher sales than 2022.
Logistics were definitely the name of the game in regard to navigation. While the installations are the same every night, there are some that are scheduled at specific times so you need to plan things out in order to be in the right zone to see them. I didn’t know this as there was no mention of these schedules on the website; I discovered it on the map/artist statement displays as I was walking around.
One of the projection artists that I was really excited to see is from Brazil and built a tricycle that’s equipped with a projector. When I found her artist statement display, it said that the projections happened each night at 7:30, 8:30, and 9:30. I just happened to be walking by right before 7:30 and a Blink event coordinator was there directing people to a different location as the artist had been redirected due to traffic and the show was rescheduled for 8pm. When I went to that location, no one was there. Not necessarily a big deal, but I realized pretty quickly that 4 hours each night is not a lot of time if you’re trying to see everything and small delays can have a big effect.
The light installations were easier to fit into a plan because they weren’t set to a specified schedule and you could interact with them if you chose or glance at them walking by. I decided to interact with the one in the video below. (Note: there are flashing lights.)
All told, of the over 80 works of art, I missed 9 light installations and 3 projections. 6 of the installations I missed because I was having a hard time finding them and was short on time, everything else I missed because it was located in the Newport Zone (see map below).
Crossing the bridge from Cincinnati into the Covington Zone took about 15 minutes, and then it would have been at least a 15 minute walk from there to the Newport Zone, which meant a total of one hour of walking just to see 3 projections and 3 light installations. While I really wanted to achieve my goal of seeing everything, after the 2nd night I realized that I didn’t know enough going into the event to make that happen, so I decided to save my feet and skipped the long walk. I did see carts that advertised free rides to any of the zones, but they didn’t have specific pickup/dropoff locations and I only saw two of them throughout the entire event. On top of that, traffic on the few open streets was awful and it likely would’ve taken longer than walking.
Overall, I walked over 27 miles in 4 days, took a ridiculous amount of photos and videos, and left Blink incredibly inspired, enthusiastic, and very overwhelmed (but in a good way). Going into it I knew I had a lot to learn, but the work I saw really solidified just how much of a beginner I am.
Being exposed to so many different styles of work all at once really opened my eyes to all of the possibilities. I loved how expertly the artist played with light and shadow in the video below. The mural that being projected on is trompe l’oeil and the animation pairs with it so well that you almost forget that everything is flat.
Aside from certain techniques, what resonated with me were the projections that told a story. Below are two examples, and the details about them are in the descriptions on YouTube.
Gaining clarity on the styles of projection art I prefer prompted me to reflect on the current direction of my work.
A major hurdle of the mandala work has been figuring out how to generate an income from it. I’ve really enjoyed my brief exploration of projecting in nature, however, if anything it has ended up posing more questions than solutions.
Events that feature projection mapping (and pay projection artists) are generally either held indoors or in the downtown area of a city where there are limited natural elements. There are some botanical gardens that have had projection events, however they’re not as prevalent, which means in order to have consistent work I’d be doing a lot of pitching of a relatively unknown idea. In order to be successful with a pitch, I’d need to have a lot more knowledge of production and costs than I currently have.
To give myself the greatest opportunity to earn a living as a projection artist right now, it’s obvious that I will need to make a shift.
Shifting focus doesn't mean I'm abandoning mandalas or my work with nature; I want to continue both. However after attending Blink I can see that I committed to a very specific idea without having a clear understanding of the broader possibilities, which ended up hindering my development as an artist. By zooming out and trying other things I can build a stronger foundation of knowledge which will help boost my confidence, especially in the production side of things, and hopefully lead to some paid gigs. Once I’ve been able to achieve that, I can narrow my focus back to the mandala work.
Will I be ready to submit a proposal to Blink in 2026? Time will tell!
As always, thank you so much for your continued support.
Until the next newsletter, be well!
Giesla
